There are many industrial two-component flow applications where it is required to monitor the flow rate of one, or both, of the flowing components. In a two component flow where the continuous component is electrically conductive, and where there is a conductivity contrast between the continuous and discontinuous components, a technique known as dual-plane Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) has the potential to be used on-line to obtain accurate estimates of the local disperse phase volumetric flow rate, the mean disperse and continuous phase volume fractions and the distributions of the local axial, radial and angular velocity components of the disperse phase.
The invention is concerned with online data acquisition and processing of measurements from two-phase flows, whose axial velocities can be up to 10 ms−1, with ±5% precision. To be able to measure two-phase flows at these velocities requires data acquisition and processing speeds of 1000 frames per second per dual-plane in order to generate flow velocity maps and this has not been possible to date, using conventional techniques.
The following prior art documents are incorporated herein by reference.
DICKIN F, WANG M, Electrical resistance tomography for process applications, Meas. Sci. Technol. 7 (1996), 247-260
WANG M, DICKIN F J, BECK M S, Improved electrical impedance tomography data collection system and measurement protocols, Tomography Technique and Process Design and Operation ISBN1813122467
TII, (2000), TMA320C6202/B Fixed-Point Digital Signal Processors, Texas Instruments Incorporated
WANG M., (1994), Electrical impedance tomography on conducting walled process vessels, PhD thesis, UMIST